History of the Parsis : including their manners, customs, religion and present position : with coloured and other illustrations : in two volumes

cHAP. 1] SHEHENSHAIS AND KADMIS. 105

sion in the British army, why should not a Parsi, who is the born subject of the Queen-Empress? Only then would the Parsis feel themselves thoroughly identified with the British nation. But of course the Parsi must first show that the lapse of even many centuries has not detracted from his warlike spirit or courage. It is a fact not unknown in Bombay that during the riots some years ago a very small number of Parsis kept at bay a mob of about a thousand persons with no other weapons than bambu sticks, and thus prevented their gaining an entrance into the Parsi quarter.

The Parsis of India are divided into two sects, the Shehenshais and the Kadmis.* They do not differ on any point of faith, as the Protestants do from the Romanists, or the Romanists again from the Greek Church ; nor does the distinction between them at all resemble that which divides the different castes of the Hindus, or the Shias and Sunnis among the Mahomedans. ‘Their forms of worship and religious ceremony, as well as all the tenets of their religion, are the same in every respect. The cause of the division between the two sects is merely a difference as to the correct chronological date for the computation of the

1 The name Shehenshai means “Imperial,” and that of Kadmi is derived from gadim, “ancient,” or gadam, (walking in) “ the footstep,” ae, of one’s ancestors. The Shehenshais are also called Rasmi, derived

from Rasm, “custom ”—that is, according to the custom obtaining in India.